Patient Safety Stories to Make You Laugh, Cry, & Warn a Friend, at New Website

NEEDHAM, Massachusetts - Healthcare industry veteran and Managing Principal of Patient AdvoCare Ken Farbstein launches PatientSafetyBlog.com today. The website is a collection of real-life stories and lessons on staying safe in the healthcare system. Each story includes expert analysis from Farbstein to educate readers on what went wrong and what people can do in their own lives to prevent similar medical errors.

"Our goal is to teach and encourage patients and patient advocates to become knowledgeable, pro-active, and empowered partners with their doctors and nurses. The website provides unbiased advice to keep our parents, children and other loved ones with acute or chronic illnesses healthy and safe from medical errors," says PatientSafetyBlog.com Blogger-in-Chief Ken Farbstein.

More than 100 stories already are available at PatientSafetyBlog.com, which soft-launched in late 2006. Stories describe the medical misadventures of celebrities as opposite as Justice William Rehnquist and Cuban leader Fidel Castro, Anna Nicole Smith and CBS news reporter Ed Bradley, former New England Patriots football coach Charlie Weis and baseball pitcher David Wells, British Foreign Secretary Sir Anthony Eden and humorist Art Buchwald. Stories concern treatment with drugs from aspirin to Zyprexa, from brain surgery to ankle surgery, affecting millionaires and homeless boys, multi-million dollar lawsuits and unpublicized errors.

Stories describe misdiagnoses, overdoses, undertreatment, wrong drug errors, adverse drug reactions, and other types of medical and surgical errors, affecting people with cancer, heart disease, post-traumatic stress disorder, addictions, brain injuries, hospital-acquired infections, kidney disease, pneumonia, rare diseases, and other conditions.

Every story on the website teaches a lesson about living safely within the healthcare system. “Patients and their advocates need to dig in and learn how to actively seek the best care from our chaotic and broken healthcare system,” adds Farbstein. "That’s why I make sure that a solid, practical, specific suggestion for patients and providers accompanies each story."

PatientSafetyBlog.com also offers free resources for patients and patient advocates, including drug interaction checks, symptom/cause checks, a medical dictionary, medical news, and more.

Readers can submit their stories, and share them with the community of readers. Anyone can use PatientSafetyBlog.com immediately by going to http://www.PatientSafetyBlog.com


About Patient AdvoCare
Patient AdvoCare, a Massachusetts-based patient advocacy practice, is led by Managing Principal Ken Farbstein. Ken advises patients and their families on living longer, healthier lives, and preventing medical errors. He extensively advised the heads of Harvard teaching hospitals, addiction treatment centers, medical groups, and health maintenance organizations on ways to improve the quality of care. His contribution enabled a multi-hospital system to win the $25,000 first annual Premier Award for Hospital Medication Safety. Farbstein also has helped healthcare provider clients win other awards, e.g., for reducing alcohol and substance abuse.

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